Kei Tua o te Pae

Kei Tua o te Pae/Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars is a best-practice guide that will help teachers continue to improve the quality of their teaching.

The exemplars are a series of books that will help teachers to understand and strengthen children's learning. It also shows how children, parents and whānau can contribute to this assessment and ongoing learning.

We are making improvements to our download-to-print functionality. So if you want a printed copy there are PDF versions available at the bottom of the main cover page.

Focusing the lens on assessment practices – He āta titiro ki ngā mahi aromatawai

"Exemplars are examples of assessments that make visible learning that is valued so that the learning community (children, families, whānau, teachers, and beyond) can foster ongoing and diverse learning pathways." 13

Book 1 of Kei Tua o te Pae defines documented and undocumented assessment as noticing, recognising, and responding. The first nine books of Kei Tua o te Pae provide some guidelines about what assessment to look for. They are assessments that:

  • include clear goals;
  • are in everyday contexts
  • protect and enhance the motivation to learn
  • acknowledge uncertainty;
  • include the documentation of collective and individual enterprises;
  • keep a view of learning as complex;
  • follow the four principles of Te Whāriki (Book 2);
  • are on the pathway towards bicultural assessment (Book 3);
  • provide opportunities for the children to contribute to their own assessment (Book 4);
  • provide opportunities for family and whānau to participate in the assessment process (Book 5);
  • make a difference to: community, competence, and continuity (Books 5, 6, and 7);
  • include infants and toddlers (Book 8);
  • reflect and strengthen inclusion (Book 9).